Page 18 of Revelation (The Josh & Kat Trilogy #2)

She smiles from ear-to-ear, clearly excited by what she’s about to say.

“Okay, so in this one, I’m a world-famous singer and my life is in serious danger because some stalker is after me.

So a gorgeous bodyguard has been hired to protect me—a really serious, no-nonsense kind of guy, like a former Secret Service agent.

And, one night, I’m performing a concert in a beautiful, sparkly outfit, like a kind of space-age-y-looking thing?

Or maybe I’ve got a beautiful headscarf around my head and I’m looking really somber, sitting on a chair.

It just depends what song I’m performing.

But either way my bodyguard gets spooked by something he sees in the crowd and he rushes onstage and swoops me up to protect me from an assassin and he literally carries me away from harm, and even though we’re not supposed to do it—because my bodyguard’s a true professional and takes his job really seriously—we just can’t resist our off-the-charts attraction and we totally get it on. ”

There’s a long beat before I’m able to speak without laughing. “So you’re saying you’ve got a porno-version of The Bodyguard that plays inside your head?” I say evenly, trying my damnedest not to laugh.

She makes a face. “You’re making fun of me? I’m telling you my deepest, darkest, hottest fantasies and you’re laughing at me?”

I can’t contain myself anymore. I burst out laughing. “No, I’m not making fun of you, I swear. I’m sorry, babe. Continue. I’m loving this.”

“I’ve seen The Bodyguard like twenty times, okay? And I’ve always wanted to be Whitney. Stop laughing at me.”

I bite my lip, trying to stop laughing. “It sounds amazing. What else?”

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you now.” She crosses her arms over her chest in a huff. “You’re supposed to be making me feel safe enough to disclose my innermost thoughts, Josh—you know, luring me into some kind of emotional intimacy— not making me feel like a complete weirdo. ”

I laugh. “I should have warned you—I suck at emotional intimacy.”

“ Obviously ,” she says. But there’s a gleam in her eye.

I touch her chin again. “I’m sorry, PG. Please forgive me. I’m a dick. ”

She pouts.

“Tell me more, babe. Tell me every last thing that turns you on. I wanna know. Don’t hold back.”

“No. You’re just gonna laugh at me.” She sticks out her lower lip.

“Never. Well, okay, I might laugh. But that doesn’t mean anything. I laugh at everything. That’s just who I am. I love hearing your fantasies, I swear.”

“I have a lot of ’em, you know,” she sniffs. “ A lot .”

“Are they all as elaborate as the ones you just told me about?”

She considers. “Yeah, pretty much. I have an extremely active imagination.”

“Come on, babe. Tell me everything. I might laugh, but only because I think you’re so fucking adorable.”

“I’ll tell you if you answer one honesty-game question for me.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“Why did Emma call you a sick fuck?”

My stomach instantly clenches.

“I don’t get it,” Kat continues. “Did you ask her to do something beyond what you wrote in your application? Because the stuff you wrote is kinky, sure, but not enough to make a girl call you names and run off with a guy wearing an ascot.”

I exhale. “It’s complicated.”

There’s a long beat.

“What’s complicated about it?” she finally asks.

“I’d really rather talk about you and your mini-pornos. I’ve totally moved on from Emma. I really have.”

“But I want to understand. Just answer this and I won’t beat a dead horse, I promise.

Did you ask her for something beyond what you wrote about in your application?

Is there something else you fantasize about that you didn’t write about—something you haven’t told me yet? Because I want to know it all.”

I shake my head. “What I put in my application is pretty much it. And it’s what I told her about—well, actually, just the savior thing.

I never even told her about the threesome thing.

I’d planned to tell her that, too, but once I’d told her about the bondage-savior fantasy, it became clear there was no point in telling her anything else. ”

She twists her mouth. “But why? I don’t understand. Was she really conservative or something? Was she a virgin? ”

I take a long time, figuring out what to say.

I breathe deeply and finally decide there’s no way, other than to just say it.

“Emma’s sexuality was complicated.” I exhale.

“Everything about Emma was complicated, actually. She’d been brutally raped as a teenager and she was deeply traumatized by the experience.

” My stomach is turning over. “Understandably. So she needed a lot of extra tenderness... I mean, sex was just really tricky for her because she was really... you know, like I said, traumatized. So... yeah.” I exhale.

“I was always really patient and gentle with her and... we were together a really long time, and I wanted to try to help her, and then I just started to... you know... the reality was I started to have needs and she wasn’t meeting them.

And I felt really guilty about that, considering what she’d been through.

.. But she kept pushing me to be honest with her.

.. accusing me of wanting more than she could give me.

.. and when I finally decided to open up and tell her everything about my past, and my mother, and about my fantasies, and I finally told her what I wanted to try, just to see if maybe the experience would maybe somehow quiet the raging voices in my head.

Well, that shit didn’t fly with her. In fact, nothing about me worked for her in the end.

Nothing. ” I run my hands through my hair.

“I’ve thought about it a lot—why I was so attracted to her when we were obviously such a mismatch.

Being with her was like banging my head into a brick wall, day after day.

But I just wanted so badly to take care of her.

” I pause, thinking. “I sometimes sit and think about why the fuck I get turned on by certain things other guys probably don’t.

And when I analyze myself, I realize, yeah, I really am a sick fuck.

I mean, getting off on the shit I do, when you think about what happened to my mom, it’s pretty demented.

” I stop myself. My face is hot. I put my hands over my face, collecting myself. Fuck .

There’s a long beat.

“I really am a sick fuck, Kat,” I say simply.

“I know I am. After what happened to my mom, I have no business incorporating bondage into my sexual fantasies. That’s just sick.

Emma was right. There’s something deeply wrong with me.

And telling a girl who’d been raped about it and asking her to try it with me to help me was also deeply fucked up.

But what she didn’t get was I was all about saving the girl, you understand?

That’s what gets me off. I just want to be the savior.

” I’ve got a lump in my throat. “Just once.”

Kat nods .

I exhale. There’s a goddamned lump in my throat that won’t go away.

“It’s still sick, though,” I say, pushing through my emotion.

“Not to mention obvious and stupid.” I swallow hard and the lump recedes.

“It’s some sort of twisted... I dunno. I guess I don’t have the best imagination.

” I take a deep breath. “And, shit, I guess I should tell you something else, as long as I’m telling you the whole truth.

” I exhale and roll my eyes. “You might as well know just how obvious and stupid and deeply disturbed I really am.”

Kat’s sitting on the edge of her seat, her blue eyes fixed on me without blinking.

“My mom was blonde,” I say. “Just like you. Just like Emma. Just like all the girls in my Sick Fuck folder. And she was gorgeous, too. Everyone always said she looked just like Grace Kelly.”

Kat grabs my hand. “I figured.”

“You did?”

She nods. “What did your dad look like?”

“Like me, pretty much. I have his dark hair.” I squeeze her hand, grateful for her reassuring touch. “I look like my dad and Jonas looks like my mom.”

Kat chuckles. “But you and your brother look so much alike, other than your hair.”

“No, Jonas is the one who looks like my mom, and I’m the one who looks like my dad. My dad always said so. Maybe that’s why my dad could never even stand to look at Jonas.”

She blanches.

There’s a long beat.

“If Jonas looks like your mom, then you do, too, Josh,” she says softly. “Just with darker hair. You two look so much alike.”

I shrug.

Kat strokes my arm with her free hand. “So. Okay. Fine. You’re a sick fuck, Josh. Your mom made an indelible impression on you. You’re obviously deeply traumatized by what happened to her. And you probably feel all kinds of guilt—totally misplaced, by the way—that Jonas was there and you weren’t.”

“But, Kat. It’s pretty fucked up that all I wanna do is fuck beautiful blondes and my mom was a beautiful blonde. Emma thought that was really sick.”

“Fuck Emma. You were seven when she died. Where else were you gonna get your idea of female beauty other than from your mom—especially if she happened to look like Grace Kelly? Growing up, that standard of beauty must have gotten reinforced for you everywhere you looked. Magazines, movies. It’s everywhere. ”

I stare at her for a long minute, not saying anything. I’m too blown away to speak. I’ve never had a conversation even resembling this one before. Not even with my childhood therapists.

“Josh, the bottom line for me is that the stuff you wrote in your application turned me on.” She squeezes my hand.

“Look, I totally get what you’re saying—and I agree you’ve obviously got some deep-seated issues that have influenced your sexual fantasies—you’ve definitely got some sort of complex relating to what happened to your mom and you’re searching for some sort of therapeutic release, some sort of.

.. what’s that word?” She snaps her fingers and scrunches her face.

“Catharsis?” I offer.